Unknown film review

certificate_15

UNKNOWN

Not so much a whodunnit as a why-, what- and howdunnit, Unknown takes a familiar premise as its starting point. A group of men wake up in a seedy warehouse with no idea of who they are or how they got there. If this already brings to mind images of Saw, Cube, Memento or even Reservoir Dogs, it also provokes the question of how such a starry cast agreed to a relatively unoriginal premise.

The five confused men include Jim Cavaziel (Passion of the Christ), as the enigmatically named Jean Jacket as well as Greg Kinnear, Barry Pepper, Joe Pantoliano and Jeremy Sisto. They soon figure out that they may be in a treacherous situation in their locked and anonymous prison. Refusing to trust one another, they slowly piece together how they got there thanks to a number of clues, and pass several cat-and-mouse and dialogue-heavy scenes trying to establish who are the good guys among them.

The film crosscuts between the deserted warehouse and a nearby town where a compex heist is underway, despite the best intentions of the local police to foil it. Bridget Moynihan (I, Robot, Lord of War) plays a teary wife who fears the worst for her husband, one of the imprisoned gang.

The powerful cast do their best and all of them do seem committed to the cause, but Simon Brand's debut is too murky and confusing for its own good and greatly suffers from being both set-bound and contrived, which is a pity given the talent available. By the time all of the pieces have been unravelled, it's likely that most of the audience will have given up caring, and this despite a meagre running time.

Paul Hurley